Three Emperors (9780062194138)

by Dietrich, William

  Richter strode over to inspect the machine. “So complex! It reminds me of the calendar clock of Prague, but with infinitely more gearing. If Albertus Magnus truly constructed this, it would have been the work of decades. Thank God that Thomas Aquinas didn’t really destroy it and that Christian Rosenkreutz spirited it to safety. The idea was that God might have designed Creation, but that once it started, we were living in a clockwork universe, predictable as Newton’s laws of motion.”

  “Life is a very wayward clock,” I remarked.

  “Events are not the product of chance and free will, but instead are highly predictable if only enough information can be absorbed and analyzed. All the variables of the present can be simplified, codified, multiplied, divided, and ultimately analyzed today and forecasted tomorrow. For example, if we knew the position of every cloud and the direction of every wind, we could predict the weather. Albertus incorporated into gears and levers the patterns of human history, in hopes this machine could tell us great secrets.”

  “Or protect us as the golem protected the Jews,” my wife said. “Perhaps the Brazen Head was built not to suggest but to warn.”

  “The Jewish golem became uncontrolled. One legend is that he was put to work fetching water, couldn’t be stopped, and flooded streets and cellars. A memory of an old Vltava flood, I’m guessing. But the golem was made by incantation. By building mechanical gearing instead of relying on magic, Albertus became a little god, with his own Adam.”

  “Adam did not obey, either.”

  Richter came to a decision. “Gage, I trade your expertise for your life. If you were the animator, how would we put this devil machine to work?”

  Start with simplicity. I turned to the machine. “How do you work?” I asked.

  It blinked, or rather the eyes flashed. My turning toward it, or the direction of my voice, somehow allowed it to sense me. But it was silent. I’d spoken in French, but that wouldn’t be the language Albertus used. He’d been a scholar of Latin.

  “Quam operor?” I tried, turning to my meager store of the language.

  Nothing.

  I walked over and tapped the brass breast. Again the eyes flashed. It had some kind of sensory apparatus. I tapped knee, shoulder, forehead, mouth . . .

  “The gears are turning,” Richter reported.

  “Spin the altar,” I commanded. “Give it more power.” So we cranked again, there was a rattle of machinery, and finally a lid fell down from the android’s chest and a board of inscribed letters appeared. We would tersely converse by writing, it seemed. The letters spun like dice and then stopped to spell out two words.

  “Quinque quaestiones.”

  “Five questions,” Astiza translated. “Is that all it can answer?”

  “It has the machinery for an infinite number,” Richter objected.

  “But perhaps not the electricity,” I said. “It’s warning us to ration. Or Albertus imposed a limit—to rest the machine or avoid foolish questions.”

  “What’s that smell?” Catherine said.

  There was a burning odor coming from the gear works under the altar. Had oil caught fire from our friction? Tendrils of smoke began drifting into the chamber.

  “Is this a trap?” the baron asked. His guns came up to cover us.

  “We spun too hard and overheated, which is why there is time for just five questions,” I hazarded. “Or it is designed to limit human queries. Or it will answer only so much at a time, like the oracle at the ancient Greek temple of Delphi.”

  “Don’t dare trick me, Gage.”

  “It’s the trick of dead Christian Rosenkreutz over there, or perhaps of Albertus Magnus, since this smolder could smoke poor Christian like a ham.”

  The android clattered and rattled again, the letter cubes spinning. Then it stopped. “Quinque quaestiones,” it insisted.

  “We must hurry,” Astiza said. She marched forward and turned letters on the automaton. “I’ve been pondering my first question,” she reported to us, and decided to ask an eternal one. “What is the purpose of life?” She spelled it out. “Quid ad mores?”

  “No!” protested Richter. “That’s a waste of philosophic nonsense!”

  But the automaton was already calculating. Gears whirred, wires hummed, levers clattered like piano keys, and finally the alphabet cubes spun to spell out a single, simple new word.

  “Mortem.” Death.

  “The purpose of life is death? What does that mean?” Catherine said. “It’s nonsense. Isn’t it?”

  I decided it was my turn. I strode to the android. “Quid ad mortem?” What is the purpose of death?

  The machine clattered again.

  “Vita.” Life. The answers were nonsense.

  “I didn’t come all this way to play in riddles,” Richter complained.

  “All right,” Catherine said. “One question each, in turn.” She moved to the keys. Hers was “Triumphare velle Napoleon?” Will Napoleon triumph?

  This time the gears spun for far longer. How could a medieval machine know who Napoleon was? And yet it didn’t hesitate, but merely “thought” longer than the first two times. And finally it shuddered, the alphabet cubes spun, and it stopped.

  “Omnes triumphus ad tempus.” Even though I don’t read Latin, I got the gist.

  “All triumph for a time,” Astiza translated.

  The smoke was getting thicker, and we had no water or sand to douse a blaze. We’d have to evacuate this pit soon.

  “Fools! You’re wasting questions!” Richter stewed. He turned to the machine and raised his voice. “Ubi est aurum? Where is gold?” Catherine moved the letters for him and the machine began to clatter. The baron watched impatiently. “Finally something practical, so we have coin to hide, power, and refine this creature.”

  Smoke was filling the room. “The eyes are fading,” I said. “It’s running down. We should cut it free before it burns.”

  “No. I want my answer.” Finally a clatter. We leaned in to look.

  “In corde.” Gold is in the heart.

  “It’s nothing but a medieval parlor trick,” the baron said slowly. “There’s no wisdom here. Only platitudes. This monster is a fraud! It’s built by Albertus to deceive the gullible.”

  “That’s four questions. One left,” I said.

  “How to live forever,” Catherine suggested.

  But Harry, whom I’d almost forgotten, shouted his own question. “Will the bad man go away?”

  I held Catherine aside while Astiza hurriedly set letters. “Erit manus abire?”

  “Vile brat!”

  But the machine was already grinding and calculating. This time it stopped sooner.

  “Manebit.” He will stay. And then the machine’s last light faded in its eyes and it went still, five questions answered, the chamber polluted.

  “Are you satisfied?” Richter sneered. “A perfect waste.”

  My son was crestfallen when his mother translated. Apparently we were to drag Richter like a ball and chain, if this brass puppet was anything but a joke. Catherine looked at the baron narrowly. And what did that mean for me, the father—to have this lecher and rapist near my wife and son? I felt impotent and defeated after all our trouble. What could I kill him with?

  “The fire is going to suffocate us,” Catherine coughed. “We have to retreat to the chamber above.”

  “Not without the automaton,” Richter said. “Gage, get it loose.”

  “It’s tied to the floor.”

  He slashed copper wires with his rapier, sparks flying. “Drag the machine up onto the altar so we can boost it.”

  I did as ordered. Meanwhile, Astiza lifted Harry to the chamber above and then caught the lip of that floor, swung, and pulled herself up with athletic grace. She leaned down to lend a hand. Catherine uncharacteristically let them go first.

  We heaved the Brazen Head up to Astiza. She grabbed to balance it so it stood in the center of the altar.

  “You get the lever, Ethan,” Catherine orde
red. “The baron and I will stand up here.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to be underneath with them on top.

  “It elevates slowly, Ethan.”

  So I dropped into the smoke, reached under where the fire had made it hot, and pulled the lever that Harry had used to lower us. There was a clunk, then an agonizing wait, and the altar began to slowly rise toward the floor above.

  “Now!” Catherine cried. “Climb on!”

  I scrambled aboard, and she held me to balance. As the altar’s base lifted clear of the circular chamber’s floor, air fed the fire, and flames burst upward. Poor dead Rosenkreutz would be cremated. We’d violated his tomb, stolen his companion, and failed at mastering the future.

  An eerie red light picked out our exhausted features, the fire giving off a sulfurous stink. “It looks like hell down there, doesn’t it?” the comtesse said.

  “We’ll put the Brazen Head in an astronomical tower under the stars of heaven,” Richter promised. “Permanently powered. With sensible questions and real answers next time.”

  “You and I could still be partners,” she cooed. “What a couple you and I would make.” She reached out. “Take my hand.” She put her fingers around his, which were still holding a pistol. He looked at her with suspicion and wonder, this beautiful woman touching a hideously scarred beast, seeing in them something in common. She smiled.

  And then with her other she snatched a silver brooch from her cloak and drove its needle into Richter’s eye, smirking at his startled howl. The gun came loose. He toppled backward as she kicked, roaring curses, and fell into the red chamber below with a snarl of oaths, the other pistol going off as he hit the floor. Then the altar base came up to seal the hole we’d descended through with a click, returning us to the seven-walled hermetic chamber.

  There was a clunk, and a snap, and the altar settled firmly into place. The smoke was snuffed away.

  Muffled cries and curses. The lever was on our level, not his.

  Richter was trapped.

  I waited for her to turn the gun on me, but I apparently still had uses. “Ethan, destroy the mechanism,” Catherine commanded calmly.

  I crawled under the table and wrenched the lever. It broke with a snap.

  Richter’s screams of terror were getting louder but were oddly distant, as if he were already a ghost.

  The purpose of life is death. The purpose of death is life.

  Was it a riddle?

  Catherine smiled sweetly at Harry. “See, the prophecy came true, little lad. He will stay. Forever.” Then she became brisk and businesslike. “Now. Let’s not let our trophy fall into the hands of those horrid ruffians waiting in ambush outside this chamber. Pasques, you’ve bled enough. Get up and protect us.”

  Chapter 38

  A lethal contingent of the Invisible College still crouched behind stalagmites, muskets and pistols at the ready. They were unaware of their commander’s fate, but were still positioned to block our escape through the tower vent.

  “Devise a strategy, Ethan,” Catherine ordered, as if it were obvious I’d have prepared a plan that incorporated her decision to murder Wolf Richter by burying him alive. “How will you kill the rest of them?”

  “There are too many,” Pasques groaned. “Eight or nine.”

  More than I counted in the courtyard: reserves coming up from the woods? “Trying to fight through would be suicidal.” I looked at Pasques. He’d tied a bloody bandage where a bullet grazed his head, which made him look even more formidable, but he was also wounded in the side. A delta of blood had spread on the floor, and he had to be weakening. The rope Gideon had given me was still wrapped around his torso.

  “The Brazen Head is a curse,” Astiza warned as she knelt to stanch the wound with a scarf. “You saw the desiccated husk of Christian Rosenkreutz, and now Richter has joined him. Let’s trade it for escape.”

  “No,” said Catherine. “They’ll cut our throats once they have it, to keep their power a secret.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because that’s what I would do.”

  “Rather ruthless, Comtesse,” I remarked.

  “I’m the only one of us who is realistic. Practical.”

  I’d seen nothing endearing about the monks of the Invisible College. She might be right. “A fighting retreat, then. The floor of the cavern slopes uphill toward its ceiling, but also toward the surface. I hear water somewhere. Maybe there’s escape that way.”

  “And if not?” my wife asked.

  “Then I’ll sell my life as best I can and you women can plea for mercy by surrendering the automaton. I haven’t come this far to give up now. Catherine, give me Richter’s pistol and yours on the altar.”

  “I will not.”

  “You know I’m the better shot. Trust me, or give up to them.”

  “Only if you form alliance with me to keep the Brazen Head.” She ignored my wife, instinctively trying to attach herself to whichever male was most convenient—for advantage, not friendship.

  “We’re a family,” I offered. “Like in Paris.”

  She surrendered the guns reluctantly, along with a bullet pouch and powder horn. It was a relief to finally be armed again.

  “Pasques, can you still shoot?”

  “With pain. But this gun doesn’t require much aiming.”

  “Ready the blunderbuss. Astiza and Catherine can drag the machine while we battle. Harry, when I tell you, run to the top of the cave as fast as you can. Hide until we come.”

  “Promise to come, Papa.”

  The dimness gave us a start. We crept from the bronze chamber door and began climbing the uneven floor of boulders, grateful for the cave’s murk while hating its reflective metal mirrors. Their only advantage was that the reflections confused the enemy about exactly where we were. They also didn’t know Richter’s fate. Harry rambled ahead. The automaton banged and skipped on the rocks as it hung between the women, carried like a casualty of battle. Pasques and I followed, guns ready. There was silence from the waiting henchmen, and then a wary call. “Baron?”

  We didn’t reply. The farther and faster we climbed, the harder we were to hit. Astiza and Catherine were frantically pulling and pushing the machine. Yet the floor was a chaotic field of boulders that had fallen from the ceiling, and the pitch was steep. Our progress was agonizingly slow.

  “What have they done with Richter?” men called behind us.

  We didn’t answer.

  “They are escaping!”

  The surviving members of Richter’s gang emerged from behind cover, and Pasques’s blunderbuss went off with a roar. Our opponents shouted and scattered, and we scrambled a few more yards. Then answering gunfire crashed, bullets chasing us like hornets. Pasques grunted and stumbled, and I knew he’d been hit again. By Thor’s thunder, he was a target big as a barn. Ricochets whined and pinged.

  I knelt with Catherine’s pistol, took a moment to steady my breath, and shot. The closest one collapsed, and the others darted for cover again. A gasping Pasques frantically reloaded.

  “Catch up to Harry!” I shouted to the women. The automaton flopped behind them, its expression blank as a marionette’s. I let myself drop lower into a crevice between two boulders, ramming and priming.

  Our pursuers reloaded as well. The gun duel continued, Pasques and I crouched behind rocks and succeeding in keeping them pinned. Each roar of the blunderbuss set shot rattling through the cavern like pebbles in a can. My shots were measured. I heard another yell of pain from our foes, and then a bullet clipped fragments of rock uncomfortably close to my face. I blinked against the grit, eyes watering, and aimed again.

  A shot, and a man went down.

  “Remember, the American is a sharpshooter!” Yet shadowy figures were crawling up both sides of the stone cavern, seeking to flank us. I looked backward. The women were almost out of sight, a glint of brass showing near the end of the cave.

  “Pasques, time to retreat.”

  “I’m b
leeding from the leg now. A bone is broken.”

  “Can you crawl?”

  He swore. Then, “I can drag myself.”

  “We can’t allow them to get around us.”

  It was fifty yards to the cavern’s upper end, with Pasques a wounded walrus. I’d wiggle and dodge five precious yards uphill, find a scrap of shelter, reload, and fire, forcing our pursuers to duck and pause. They gamely fired back, bullets singing, and I feared that the closer we came to the women, the more likely it was that a bullet would find my son.

  The French policeman left a steady trail of blood, using his gun as a crutch and lever. He had no time to load and fire anymore.

  Finally we neared the end. Catherine was prone, skirts tangled with the brass boots of the enigmatic android. Harry had to be beyond.

  “Is it possible to crawl through?” I asked as we caught up.

  “Narrow,” Catherine reported. “Your son is exploring, your wife following.” She lowered her voice. “Too tight for Pasques.”

  I felt tantalizing fresh air. “Leave the machine if you must.”

  “I’ll leave all of you before I leave the machine.” She wriggled ahead, pushing the android, and it jerked and bobbed as it was crammed into the tunnel. “Astiza, get back here and help!”

  I looked at the policeman, my enemy and odd ally. He had a sweaty sheen, teeth clenched, pain immense. He looked at the exit, then at me, and shook his head. “Take the rope.” He shed it like skin. “You may need it. Go, go!”

  The mad monks of the Invisible College were crawling closer. A brave one traded shots to force me down to load and then sprang up to charge, his bayonet ready. I cocked and shot with my ramrod still in the barrel. It took him in the chest like an arrow, and he pitched back.

  “Pasques, your blunderbuss! I’ll hold them off while you squeeze.”

  “It’s broken. Go, follow the others. Now!”

  “You’re wounded.”

  “And slow. And likely to get stuck, greased with my own blood. Join your family. It’s too late for me.”

  Another volley of shots and the policeman cried out as he was hit yet again. Our assailants were converging. It was foolhardy to linger. I crawled past him into a hole tight as a rabbit’s burrow. I got my shoulders through only by extending one arm forward and one back, as if swimming. I held the climbing rope that Gideon had given us like an offering and kicked like a tadpole. Astiza grabbed my outstretched wrist and hauled. “Leave your coat!”